A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.
Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to al.cross@uky.edu. Follow us on Twitter @RuralJournalism

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Study: Medicaid expansion in 2014 didn't cause migration from non-expansion to expansion states

There is "little to no evidence" that some states' expansion of Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2014 encouraged migration to expansion states from non-expansion states in that year, says the author of a study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

"Migration from non-expansion states to expansion states, among those who I classify as being potentially Medicaid-eligible, did not increase relative to migration in the reverse direction," University of Maryland Ph.D. student Lucas Goodman said in a JPAMinterview about his study. He noted that the possibility of in-migration and additional taxpayer expense "were often cited by non-expanding states as a reason why they should not expand."

Goodman said he was surprised at his finding, because "Medicaid expenditures in 2014 for the newly-eligible population averaged about $5,500, which is a large amount relative to income for the typical newly-eligible individual. Yet, individuals were apparently not willing to migrate in order to gain access to these benefits."

He added, "The big question is whether migration effects will increase in the longer term, either as individuals in non-expansion states learn about the presence of the expansion in other states or states’ expansion/non-expansion decisions appear to be more set in stone." However, the reform law and Medicaid likely to undergo major changes under President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress.

Subscribe to daily email feed

Subscribe to Rural Blog via RSS

About The Rural Blog

This blog generally follows traditional journalistic standards. It's not about opinions, though you may read one here occasionally. It's about facts that we think will be useful to rural journalists, non-rural journalists who do rural stories, and others interested in rural issues. We don't try to be provocative, so we don't generate as many comments as most blogs with the level of traffic we have, but we certainly invite comments -- and contributions, to al.cross@uky.edu. Feel free to republish blog items, with credit to us and the original source.